Fully vaccinated Americans can travel again, CDC says

New guidance from CDC on traveling

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidance to say fully vaccinated people can travel within the U.S. without getting tested for the coronavirus or going into quarantine afterward.

Still, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky urged caution and said she would "advocate against general travel overall" given the rising number of infections.

"If you are vaccinated, it is lower risk," she said.

According to the CDC, nearly 100 million people in the U.S. — or about 30% of the population — have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. A person is considered fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving the last required dose.

Can I still spread the coronavirus after I'm vaccinated? It’s possible. Experts say the risk is low, but are still studying how well the shots blunt the spread of the virus.

Cuomo: Cases continue to stagnate despite vaccination push

The struggle to bring down COVID-19 levels continued to stagnate statewide and on Long Island as New York entered the Easter holiday weekend, officials said Friday, even as the number of people vaccinated steadily climbs.

On Friday, New York State also began allowing arts and entertainment venues to reopen with limited capacity, after having been closed for more than a year. Social distancing and other precautions are required.

The Easter holiday will bring some risk in spreading COVID-19, local doctors said.

"We have to take the emotional needs of people, including going to church and seeing family, with the medical needs of the community," said Dr. Sharon Nachman, chief of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at Stony Brook Children's Hospital.

The number of new positives reported today: 638 in Nassau, 706 in Suffolk, 3,794 in New York City and 7,787 statewide.

The chart below shows the number of new coronavirus cases confirmed each day on Long Island.

Search a map of new cases and view charts showing the latest local trends in testing, hospitalizations, deaths and more.

Message at vigil: Faith, love will end attacks

Community members, faith leaders and elected officials bowed their heads in silence at a vigil Thursday night in Mineola to mourn the victims of hate crimes and call for unity amid recent attacks nationwide targeting Asian Americans.

The rally, organized by the Nassau County Office of Asian American Affairs and County Executive Laura Curran, attracted an ethnically diverse crowd of about 100 — Asian American advocates, children with their parents and others there to show support. Some attendees held a single white rose each while others clutched small, flickering electronic candles.

"We owe it to our elderly to not only protect them from verbal and physical assaults and help them when they are hurting but also to listen to their journeys and our families’ histories," Olivia Wong, 17, a senior at New Hyde Park Memorial High School, told the crowd.

"There are things of beauty, determination and resilience in their stories that make us proud to be Asian Americans," she said.

Earlier Thursday at the same place where Wong and others gathered, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced his support for a bill that would give the U.S. Department of Justice and local law enforcement more tools to combat the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes throughout the pandemic.

At LI dealerships, increased demand meets short supply

Vito and Phyllis Altamura stuck to what they knew when car shopping.

The Manhasset couple’s small four-door car, a 2014 Nissan Versa, died a few weeks ago, so they bought a 2021 Versa last week at Legend Nissan in Syosset.

Vito Altamura has been working from home in his internet marketing job since last March because of the COVID-19 pandemic, while his wife is a stay-at-home mom.

"Honestly, we didn’t need to buy a car because we’re not going anywhere," said Phyllis Altamura, 50.

But they decided to replace their car because paying for rental cars and Ubers gets pricey, and they figured they would get a good deal on a new car, they said.

They were right — but what’s going on in the car sales business now is a two-sided story.

More to know

The Mets’ entire weekend series against the Nationals was postponed due to the Nationals’ COVID-19 problems, MLB announced Friday

Some Long Island retailers are reporting higher-than-normal Easter-related sales — some are hitting records — as consumers plan new and different ways to observe the holiday amid the pandemic.

Student and medical debt collection by the state will not resume until after April 30, Attorney General Letitia James announced Thursday.

America’s employers unleashed a burst of hiring in March, adding 916,000 jobs in a sign that a sustained recovery from the pandemic recession is taking hold.

One of the nation’s largest egg companies has agreed to donate 1.2 million eggs to resolve allegations of price gouging during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic.

News for you

Need inspiration to get moving again? If you're trying to reboot your fitness regimen after the pandemic derailed your progress, Nanette Brown can provide some inspiration. The 47-year-old said her life changed in March 2020 when the rest of Long Island was going into shutdown. She weighed 215 pounds and knew she had to start moving. See what fueled her 70-plus-pound weight loss.

Explore Huntington. If the theme of your spring break is staycation, you could try exploring Huntington. Few towns on Long Island can offer visitors a vibrant downtown, a nationally recognized working farm, an intimate live music venue where Billy Joel has performed and a castle. Here’s a sampling of what the area has to offer.

A new restaurant to try. Months before the pandemic, the owners of Rockville Centre’s Parlay decided to transform the space into a branch of The Ainsworth, an upscale sports bar with four locations in New York City. COVID-19 required a change of plans. Learn about the new restaurant they did open.

Plus: Oscar winner Mercedes Ruehl, comic Joy Behar and Garden City's Susan Lucci are among the big names coming to Guild Hall this summer to celebrate the East Hampton venue's 90th season, the theater announced. It will begin its outdoor series June 4-5 when audience members can sit in lawn circles that are spaced apart to allow for social distancing.

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Commentary

Where are the vaccine hot spots in Suffolk? Randi Marshall, a member of the Newsday editorial board, writes: Vaccine sites run by Suffolk County have administered first doses to 48,494 individuals from across Suffolk and beyond, according to data provided to The Point by Deputy County Executive Lisa Black.

More than 3,700 of those vaccine recipients, about 7.7% of the total, live in two ZIP codes — 11706 and 11717, in the Brentwood and Bay Shore areas. Another 6.6% — 3,226 residents — came from Huntington Station and Central Islip.

That’s significant because it seems to indicate that the county’s efforts to target minority neighborhoods, some underserved by health care networks and often hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic, have been successful in some of those pockets.

The data highlights the importance of the Suffolk County Community College site in Brentwood that, until recently, was run by the county, in addition to the various pop-ups the county has organized. The state recently added the community college site as a state-run mass vaccination location that potentially could deliver even more shots. Continue reading.